| <!-- | |
| This repo-level readme needs restructuring, pending some Linebender templating decisions. | |
| https://xi.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/419691-linebender/topic/Bikeshedding.20badges/with/452312397 | |
| For now, prefer updating the package-level readmes, e.g. vello/README.md. | |
| --> | |
| <div align="center"> | |
| # Vello | |
| **A GPU compute-centric 2D renderer** | |
| [](https://xi.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/197075-vello) | |
| [](https://deps.rs/repo/github/linebender/vello) | |
| [](#license) | |
| [](https://crates.io/crates/wgpu) | |
| [](https://crates.io/crates/vello) | |
| [](https://docs.rs/vello) | |
| [](https://github.com/linebender/vello/actions) | |
| </div> | |
| Vello is a 2D graphics rendering engine written in Rust, with a focus on GPU compute. | |
| It can draw large 2D scenes with interactive or near-interactive performance, using [`wgpu`] for GPU access. | |
| Quickstart to run an example program: | |
| ```shell | |
| cargo run -p with_winit | |
| ``` | |
|  | |
| It is used as the rendering backend for [Xilem], a Rust GUI toolkit. | |
| > [!WARNING] | |
| > Vello can currently be considered in an alpha state. In particular, we're still working on the following: | |
| > | |
| > - [Implementing blur and filter effects](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/476). | |
| > - [Conflations artifacts](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/49). | |
| > - [GPU memory allocation strategy](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/366) | |
| > - [Glyph caching](https://github.com/linebender/vello/issues/204) | |
| Significant changes are documented in [the changelog]. | |
| ## Motivation | |
| Vello is meant to fill the same place in the graphics stack as other vector graphics renderers like [Skia](https://skia.org/), [Cairo](https://www.cairographics.org/), and its predecessor project [Piet](https://github.com/linebender/piet). | |
| On a basic level, that means it provides tools to render shapes, images, gradients, text, etc, using a PostScript-inspired API, the same that powers SVG files and [the browser `<canvas>` element](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/CanvasRenderingContext2D). | |
| Vello's selling point is that it gets better performance than other renderers by better leveraging the GPU. | |
| In traditional PostScript-style renderers, some steps of the render process like sorting and clipping either need to be handled in the CPU or done through the use of intermediary textures. | |
| Vello avoids this by using prefix-sum algorithms to parallelize work that usually needs to happen in sequence, so that work can be offloaded to the GPU with minimal use of temporary buffers. | |
| This means that Vello needs a GPU with support for compute shaders to run. | |
| ## Getting started | |
| Vello is meant to be integrated deep in UI render stacks. | |
| While drawing in a Vello scene is easy, actually rendering that scene to a surface requires setting up a wgpu context, which is a non-trivial task. | |
| To use Vello as the renderer for your PDF reader / GUI toolkit / etc, your code will have to look roughly like this: | |
| ```rust | |
| use vello::{ | |
| kurbo::{Affine, Circle}, | |
| peniko::{Color, Fill}, | |
| *, | |
| }; | |
| // Initialize wgpu and get handles | |
| let (width, height) = ...; | |
| let device: wgpu::Device = ...; | |
| let queue: wgpu::Queue = ...; | |
| let mut renderer = Renderer::new( | |
| &device, | |
| RendererOptions::default() | |
| ).expect("Failed to create renderer"); | |
| // Create scene and draw stuff in it | |
| let mut scene = vello::Scene::new(); | |
| scene.fill( | |
| vello::peniko::Fill::NonZero, | |
| vello::Affine::IDENTITY, | |
| vello::Color::from_rgb8(242, 140, 168), | |
| None, | |
| &vello::Circle::new((420.0, 200.0), 120.0), | |
| ); | |
| // Draw more stuff | |
| scene.push_layer(...); | |
| scene.fill(...); | |
| scene.stroke(...); | |
| scene.pop_layer(...); | |
| let texture = device.create_texture(&...); | |
| // Render to a wgpu Texture | |
| renderer | |
| .render_to_texture( | |
| &device, | |
| &queue, | |
| &scene, | |
| &texture, | |
| &vello::RenderParams { | |
| base_color: palette::css::BLACK, // Background color | |
| width, | |
| height, | |
| antialiasing_method: AaConfig::Msaa16, | |
| }, | |
| ) | |
| .expect("Failed to render to a texture"); | |
| // Do things with `texture`, such as blitting it to the Surface using | |
| // wgpu::util::TextureBlitter | |
| ``` | |
| See the [`examples`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples) directory for code that integrates with frameworks like winit. | |
| ## Performance | |
| We've observed 177 fps for the paris-30k test scene on an M1 Max, at a resolution of 1600 pixels square, which is excellent performance and represents something of a best case for the engine. | |
| More formal benchmarks are on their way. | |
| ## Integrations | |
| ### SVG | |
| A separate Linebender integration for rendering SVG files is available through [`vello_svg`](https://github.com/linebender/vello_svg). | |
| ### Lottie | |
| A separate Linebender integration for playing Lottie animations is available through [`velato`](https://github.com/linebender/velato). | |
| ### Bevy | |
| A separate Linebender integration for rendering raw scenes or Lottie and SVG files in [Bevy] through [`bevy_vello`](https://github.com/linebender/bevy_vello). | |
| ## Examples | |
| Our examples are provided in separate packages in the [`examples`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples) directory. | |
| This allows them to have independent dependencies and faster builds. | |
| Examples must be selected using the `--package` (or `-p`) Cargo flag. | |
| ### Winit | |
| Our [winit] example ([examples/with_winit](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples/with_winit)) demonstrates rendering to a [winit] window. | |
| By default, this renders the [GhostScript Tiger] as well as all SVG files you add in the [examples/assets/downloads](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples/assets/downloads) directory. | |
| A custom list of SVG file paths (and directories to render all SVG files from) can be provided as arguments instead. | |
| It also includes a collection of test scenes showing the capabilities of `vello`, which can be shown with `--test-scenes`. | |
| ```shell | |
| cargo run -p with_winit | |
| ``` | |
| <!-- ### Headless --> | |
| ## Platforms | |
| We aim to target all environments which can support WebGPU with the [default limits](https://www.w3.org/TR/webgpu/#limits). | |
| We defer to [`wgpu`] for this support. | |
| Other platforms are more tricky, and may require special building/running procedures. | |
| ### Web | |
| Because Vello relies heavily on compute shaders, we rely on the emerging WebGPU standard to run on the web. | |
| Browser support for WebGPU is still evolving. | |
| Vello has been tested using production versions of Chrome, but WebGPU support in Firefox and Safari is still experimental. | |
| It may be necessary to use development browsers and explicitly enable WebGPU. | |
| The following command builds and runs a web version of the [winit demo](#winit). | |
| This uses [`cargo-run-wasm`](https://github.com/rukai/cargo-run-wasm) to build the example for web, and host a local server for it | |
| ```shell | |
| # Make sure the Rust toolchain supports the wasm32 target | |
| rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown | |
| # The binary name must also be explicitly provided as it differs from the package name | |
| cargo run_wasm -p with_winit --bin with_winit_bin | |
| ``` | |
| There is also a web demo [available here](https://linebender.github.io/vello) on supporting web browsers. | |
| > [!WARNING] | |
| > The web is not currently a primary target for Vello, and WebGPU implementations are incomplete, so you might run into issues running this example. | |
| ### Android | |
| The [`with_winit`](#winit) example supports running on Android, using [cargo apk](https://crates.io/crates/cargo-apk). | |
| ```shell | |
| cargo apk run -p with_winit --lib | |
| ``` | |
| > [!TIP] | |
| > cargo apk doesn't support running in release mode without configuration. | |
| > See [their crates page docs](https://crates.io/crates/cargo-apk) (around `package.metadata.android.signing.<profile>`). | |
| > | |
| > See also [cargo-apk#16](https://github.com/rust-mobile/cargo-apk/issues/16). | |
| > To run in release mode, you must add the following to `examples/with_winit/Cargo.toml` (changing `$HOME` to your home directory): | |
| ```toml | |
| [package.metadata.android.signing.release] | |
| path = "$HOME/.android/debug.keystore" | |
| keystore_password = "android" | |
| ``` | |
| > [!NOTE] | |
| > As `cargo apk` does not allow passing command line arguments or environment variables to the app when ran, these can be embedded into the | |
| > program at compile time (currently for Android only) | |
| > `with_winit` currently supports the environment variables: | |
| > | |
| > - `VELLO_STATIC_LOG`, which is equivalent to `RUST_LOG` | |
| > - `VELLO_STATIC_ARGS`, which is equivalent to passing in command line arguments | |
| For example (with unix shell environment variable syntax): | |
| ```sh | |
| VELLO_STATIC_LOG="vello=trace" VELLO_STATIC_ARGS="--test-scenes" cargo apk run -p with_winit --lib | |
| ``` | |
| ## Minimum supported Rust Version (MSRV) | |
| This version of Vello has been verified to compile with **Rust 1.88** and later. | |
| Future versions of Vello might increase the Rust version requirement. | |
| It will not be treated as a breaking change and as such can even happen with small patch releases. | |
| <details> | |
| <summary>Click here if compiling fails.</summary> | |
| As time has passed, some of Vello's dependencies could have released versions with a higher Rust requirement. | |
| If you encounter a compilation issue due to a dependency and don't want to upgrade your Rust toolchain, then you could downgrade the dependency. | |
| ```sh | |
| # Use the problematic dependency's name and version | |
| cargo update -p package_name --precise 0.1.1 | |
| ``` | |
| </details> | |
| ## Community | |
| Discussion of Vello development happens in the [Linebender Zulip](https://xi.zulipchat.com/), specifically the [#vello channel](https://xi.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/197075-vello). | |
| All public content can be read without logging in. | |
| Contributions are welcome by pull request. | |
| The [Rust code of conduct] applies. | |
| Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache 2.0 license, shall be licensed as noted in the [License](#license) section, without any additional terms or conditions. | |
| ## History | |
| Vello was previously known as `piet-gpu`. | |
| This prior incarnation used a custom cross-API hardware abstraction layer, called `piet-gpu-hal`, instead of [`wgpu`]. | |
| An archive of this version can be found in the branches [`custom-hal-archive-with-shaders`] and [`custom-hal-archive`]. | |
| This succeeded the previous prototype, [piet-metal], and included work adapted from [piet-dx12]. | |
| The decision to lay down `piet-gpu-hal` in favor of WebGPU is discussed in detail in the blog post [Requiem for piet-gpu-hal]. | |
| A [vision](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/doc/vision.md) document dated December 2020 explained the longer-term goals of the project, and how we might get there. | |
| Many of these items are out-of-date or completed, but it still may provide some useful background. | |
| ## Related projects | |
| Vello takes inspiration from many other rendering projects, including: | |
| - [Pathfinder](https://github.com/servo/pathfinder) | |
| - [Spinel](https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fuchsia/+/refs/heads/master/src/graphics/lib/compute/spinel/) | |
| - [Forma](https://github.com/google/forma) | |
| - [Massively Parallel Vector Graphics](https://w3.impa.br/~diego/projects/GanEtAl14/) | |
| - [Random-access rendering of general vector graphics](https://hhoppe.com/proj/ravg/) | |
| ## License | |
| Licensed under either of | |
| - Apache License, Version 2.0 ([LICENSE-APACHE](LICENSE-APACHE) or <http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0>) | |
| - MIT license ([LICENSE-MIT](LICENSE-MIT) or <http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT>) | |
| at your option. | |
| In addition, all files in the [`vello_shaders/shader`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/vello_shaders/shader) and [`vello_shaders/src/cpu`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/vello_shaders/src/cpu) directories and subdirectories thereof are alternatively licensed under the Unlicense ([vello_shaders/shader/UNLICENSE](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/vello_shaders/shader/UNLICENSE) or <http://unlicense.org/>). | |
| For clarity, these files are also licensed under either of the above licenses. | |
| The intent is for this research to be used in as broad a context as possible. | |
| The files in subdirectories of the [`examples/assets`](https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/examples/assets) directory are licensed solely under their respective licenses, available in the `LICENSE` file in their directories. | |
| [piet-metal]: https://github.com/linebender/piet-metal | |
| [`wgpu`]: https://wgpu.rs/ | |
| [Xilem]: https://github.com/linebender/xilem/ | |
| [Rust code of conduct]: https://www.rust-lang.org/policies/code-of-conduct | |
| [`custom-hal-archive-with-shaders`]: https://github.com/linebender/piet-gpu/tree/custom-hal-archive-with-shaders | |
| [`custom-hal-archive`]: https://github.com/linebender/piet-gpu/tree/custom-hal-archive | |
| [piet-dx12]: https://github.com/bzm3r/piet-dx12 | |
| [GhostScript tiger]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghostscript_Tiger.svg | |
| [winit]: https://github.com/rust-windowing/winit | |
| [Bevy]: https://bevyengine.org/ | |
| [Requiem for piet-gpu-hal]: https://raphlinus.github.io/rust/gpu/2023/01/07/requiem-piet-gpu-hal.html | |
| [the changelog]: https://github.com/linebender/vello/tree/main/CHANGELOG.md |